Aqueous emulsion coating compositions adapted to cure when baked normally employ an emulsion copolymer in combination with an aminoplast resin, such as a melamineformaldehyde condensate, as a curing reactant. This cure is usually catalyzed by the presence of an acid catalyst. These known aqueous emulsion coating systems tend to lose gloss on exposure and are otherwise inadequately durable. Efforts to overcome these drawbacks by incorporating the N-methylol curing functionality supplied by the aminoplast resin into the aqueous emulsion copolymer encounters difficulty because the N-methylol functionality tends to prereact during the copolymerization. Also, the surfactant which stabilizes the emulsion system tends to impair the desired properties.